Monday, 28 August 2017

While Bill English suffers from memory loss concerning rental income, gay marriage, and that he has never used birth control methods and that the year 2002 never existed in the National Party history book.

While Jacinda never met Tony Blair, loves children, fails to understand policy and her main weapon is her smile. And in no way is she a neoliberal and never really ever believed that Roger Douglas was a Labour Party Minister of Finance.

Then we have really old Winston Peters, an ex-Treasurer who has been sacked by three Prime Ministers, and who can’t remember just how much money he paid back to the MSD for over payment of his over 65 national super.

The picture [above] relates to American Presidents:

Where do you think our budding and want-to-be Prime Ministers English / Ardern / Peters fit.

Is it Washington, Nixon or Trump or is it all them.

Bill English can’t pretend to follow the Washington model, because we know he’s told lies and having six children proves immigration is not a problem to him as he has his own population increase programme. He is not quite a Nixon in that he can tell the truth at times but often one needs to question his truth. So maybe he fits more into the Trump style. You decide.

Jacinda Ardern is different from the three American Presidents; she is a woman. Therefor she is less practised at the political art of half-truth, outright lies, all those skills could appear after the election but at least she starts with clean slate. I think she is closer to Washington in so much as ‘I cannot tell a lie…yet’ but tomorrow, who knows.

Winston Peters the only minor party leader who can picture himself as being PM. He of course received his training under the master of the big lie, Rob Muldoon. Remember Muldoon was Peters’ hero model way back then when Peters was a good National Party MP. But alas they sacked him, so he created his own party, and joined National again, then he went with Labour. So maybe he fits into the Trump style and really can’t tell the difference.

The only PM I remember who clearly fits all three Presidents was John Key, Remember his ‘No new taxes’, then he raised GST. His pony tail pulling episodes [10]; his closing down the media by using the police to raid them after his cup of tea with John Banks; his illegal raid on the Kim Dotcom mansion in Auckland; his appointment of his old school buddy to the top job in the GCSB; and lastly his order to the NZDF to raid a village in Afghanistan that led to the deaths of twenty-one civilians and the later promotion of the DF Chief at the time to Governor General.

Still the American people will decide the fate of their really strange President, we never got the chance to decide the fate of our ‘Can never tell a lie PM, Never tell the truth PM, or didn’t know the difference PM because he bailed out, took a Knight Hood and is looking for American citizenship sometime in the future.

But we should not forget that sweet wee Bill English had nine years training by this ex-PM I’ve no doubt that some of his manipulative skills have found themselves deeply embedded in his brain.

So its now over to you...yes YOU the voter to decide the fate of the nation, will you select the 'I cannot tell a lie type? Or will you prefer the 'I cannot tell the truth type? Or will you prefer the 'I don't know the difference type?

"It's unfair to blame Michelle Boag. Michelle has worked particularly hard. She's a great leader. She leads by example."

Michelle Boag would not rule resignation in - or out…

No one person was in charge of the campaign, which in itself has been a source of dissatisfaction. It was the work of a committee: Mr English, Michelle Boag, director-general Allan Johnston, deputy leader Roger Sowry, MPs Murray McCully and Simon Power, as well as Mr English's advisers Tim Grafton and Sue Foley.

Following caucus rules after an election defeat, Mr English's leadership will be put to the test tomorrow, but he is expected to be overwhelmingly confirmed. [Will this be the case in 2017?]

Annabel Young expressed concerns that many in the party are voicing.

"I don't think we had a campaign. I don't think we had a strategy.

"The only person with any campaign experience on the campaign committee was Murray McCully."

Mr English was in a brighter mood yesterday to begin what he called "the permanent campaign" than the despair he succumbed to on Saturday night.

After a series of media interviews following his concession speech, he broke down in tears and was taken by staff to a more private room to be consoled by his wife, Mary…

The test will be how bold he is with his front bench and how his old friends and fellow members of the so-called brat pack fare: Mr Sowry, Tony Ryall and Nick Smith.

* Two Auckland political scientists agreed National failed to distinguish its policies from that of Labour - but they were still surprised by the size of National's thumping…

Dr Miller said Labour had purged itself of Rogernomics, [Really] but National had struggled to distance itself from its own perceived failings.

"You have to decide what you stand for, and I feel Bill English was looking to policies they had tried in the 1990s. It was as though they hadn't repositioned themselves," Dr Miller said.

Having Don Brash in the party did not help that - voters may have seen him as being a throwback to radical economics.

The Auckland University deputy head of politics, Dr Joe Atkinson, said the party's advertising was "appalling" and its opening moves "amateurish". Dr Atkinson said Mr English improved during the campaign, but was yet to match Helen Clark.

"Bill English is a bit of a waffler, a sloganeer - up against Helen Clark with her magisterial grasp of policy detail."

Both political scientists said Michelle Boag would cop much of the blame for the defeat - whether justified or not.

Sunday, 13 August 2017

Sometimes “The Law Is An Ass”

One of the most persistent cries this week – from even nice, well meaning people – has been, “the law is the law, you’ve got to obey the law.” But sometimes, to quote Charles Dickens, ”the law is an ass”.

The rule of law is important, but not an end in itself. Laws are supposed to serve the people. Not vice versa. Good law empowers everyone. Good law does not oppress anyone.
Laws are a product of society at a snapshot in time, more particularly the dominant sector of that society. There are plenty of laws that are or were designed to protect the interests of that dominant sector at the expense of other sectors of society.

Some laws are good laws. They aim to protect us all, such as the laws to prevent people from deliberately injuring one another. However, even those laws haven’t always protected everyone. It was legal for men to rape their wives in New Zealand until 1985.

There are laws that are probably good laws in some circumstances but which nobody obeys all of the time, such as jaywalking – crossing the road within 20 metres of a fixed crossing, or crossing at a red light. There is no qualifying statement in the legislation that says it is ok to cross if there is no traffic, but most of us do.

And there are some laws that are simply oppressive and unfair and reflect only the prejudices of the dominant sector of society at the time. Laws such as the law that restricted voting rights to Pakeha male property owners, and laws against homosexuality and abortion. Divorce law dictated originally that divorce was only available on the grounds of adultery by the wife, and adultery by the husband if accompanied by certain aggravating circumstances.

As social attitudes change, laws change and attitudes to people who broke past laws also change. In Gore, there is a museum funded by the district council that celebrates the people who broke the prohibition laws in force at the time by illegally brewing whiskey (Hokonui Moonshine); though many women supported prohibition at the time, as a means to control alcohol-fuelled family violence in the absence of laws to protect women and children in the home. This year the government rightly issued an apology to those convicted of homosexual activities, even though they were breaking the law at the time.

It is arguable that change only comes about when enough people break a particularly oppressive law. Witness the lowering of the drinking age and the voting age from 21yrs to 20 to 18yrs, and same-sex marriage. Medical marijuana is on its way to becoming legal because so many people were using it anyway. Decriminalizing cannabis is not far away either for the same reasons.

Not providing a liveable income is a violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the nearest thing we have to a set of global laws, and to which New Zealand is a signatory. Yet in 1991 the government of the day violated the UN Declaration by slashing benefits to below a liveable income and introducing market rents to state houses.

This deliberate violation of a global agreement has yet to be rectified. And that is what Metiria Turei, former Green Party co-leader, was trying to do. We owe Metiria a debt of gratitude for exposing a law that is an ass, a law that dictates that solo parents must agree to live a life of solitary celibacy if they wish to receive even a modicum of support from the government. And for exposing the real lawbreakers – successive governments who refuse to adhere to the UN Declaration and restore benefits to a level that provides a liveable income for those who are not in a position to undertake paid work.

What Metiria did twenty years ago didn’t bother the Law Society. Why should it bother anyone else? If we are not prepared to raise benefits to a liveable level we should expect that people do what it takes to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. And we should refrain from judging them if they do not bare their souls when government officials pry into their private lives.

Most of us would steal food if it were the only way to feed our children. Most of us would lie if it were the only way to keep a roof over our children’s heads. The thing that should be illegal in this case is not what people do to survive, but people not having a liveable income in the first place.

Metiria Turei should be looking forward to taking the Social Development portfolio, not leaving parliament after the elections. It is a travesty that people see fit to ignore the important message she gave, using her own lived experience as an example – too many New Zealanders are living below the poverty line because our benefits are too low. And benefits need to be raised to a liveable level. Metiria would have fought to make it so.

Sadly there are still too many in New Zealand who would be more at home in Victorian England. People who are happy to ignore the UN Declaration of Human Rights. People who think that poverty is a lifestyle choice. People who think that beneficiaries should be grateful for whatever scraps the government of the day chooses to throw them with whatever draconian conditions are attached.

Metiria told us different, but unwilling to accept the message, we shot the messenger. This is New Zealand in 2017, not Victorian England. Metiria may have been hounded out of parliament, but there are others of us who think the way that she does. This conversation is not over.